Volunteering & Community

A unique collaboration between the nonprofit First Book and Middlesex Savings Bank will provide brand-new books to children enrolled in the MetroWest YMCA’s Schools Out program during the “10,000 Adventures” launch and reading celebration on October 1, 2015.

Smoke billows out of a house surrounded by dense forest. Flames rage into the night sky. Cal Yarborough, former chief of the Big Creek Volunteer Fire Department, runs down the road, finds a hose and starts spraying a smoldering propane tank. Neighbors awake and race to the volunteer fire station to sound the alarm.

Once the province of a few unusually green or community-oriented companies, sustainability reporting is now a best practice employed by companies worldwide. A full 95 percent of the Global 250 issue sustainability reports, and by doing so gain a competitive edge in every aspect of the triple bottom line.

When the Reed family went to Long Beach’s Heartwell Park on a recent weekend, they planned to visit the duck pond as part of daughter Naomi’s seventh birthday celebration. But they ended up seeing much more than ducks, they saw a helicopter landing among other things.

Even at 9 a.m., every kid’s face in the room shined with excitement at Eastman Avenue Elementary School in East Los Angeles. Sparky the Wonderbug was about to buzz in for a performance of “A Bug’s Light!”, an interactive show designed to teach children how to stay safe around electricity.

Every year, some 78 million children, teens and young adults prepare for that annual pilgrimage of back-to-school activities. As an empty nester, this time of year is special to me as I join in that emotional ritual of anticipation and excitement for all that a new school year brings.

At the Boston College Center for Corporate Citizenship, we have been busy finishing the analysis of our 2015 study of how companies are managing and executing the community involvement activities within their corporate citizenship efforts, and expect the final report to be released this fall.

As part of a new partnership between 20th Century Fox and UNICEF, the familiar characters from the upcoming Blue Sky Studios film The Peanuts Movie will help raise funds for the organization this fall. Charlie Brown, Snoopy, and more will appear in ads and resources for the Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF campaign, a national initiative encouraging kids to ask for donations to UNICEF as they go door-to-door on Halloween.